Saving The Abandoned Empress

166 “Operation Moonlight”

A few days later~

Eleanora looked at the piles of boxes which contained medical supplies coldly, sent from Dalton Duchy.

Everyone was whispering how generous and rich the Duke is to send such expensive medical supplies.

‘Why would father sent this all of a sudden?’

‘How did he knew that there was a shortage in medical supply?’

Eleanora thought as she recalled that she has never mentioned anything about the medical army to her father.

‘What’s going on?’

The more Eleanora thought, the more suspicious she felt this matter to be.

It can’t be such a coincidence as the others doesn’t know about the improvement of the medical camp yet.

.....

She knows she should trust her father but for some reasons she’s not able to do that anymore.

She has been feeling like this since that day.

She is getting suspicious of everything around her, every people feels like they are talking about her.

Eleanora is not able to trust anyone or open up, neither understand why she is like this.

She just feels nothing but sadness covering her heart and act cold because of this.

A month has been passed by since that day, and the empire’s troops advanced under the command of the third squadron leader; Eleanora Ariande La Dalton.

The war raged back and forth between the empire’s army and the soldiers of the Kingdom Rua; Lead by their king, Medel De Melendez Rua.

Just like the past and Eleanora’s wise tactics, the damage from the wars was not so severe.

Forces in the east were able to conquer the enemies major forts and continued to march towards south.

Meanwhile, Jennifer and Dion continued with the medical treatment which healed more then half of the injured soldiers and the deat rate of the soldiers dropped to 2% from 42%.

Eleanora continued to fight in the war with Cedrick helping her alongside, where the distance between the emperor and her continued to grow more.

Cathain, who doesn’t remember the visions of his past life was egoist.

To him, he already lowered himself that much even if he doesn’t remember the past.

He decided to follow his heart and accept it’s change but she still rejected him that way.

So, he decided to follow his brain and ignore her as she did.

Fighting against his heart to not pay any attention to her but still finds himself looking for her news time to time.

Eleanora continued to win against the Rua armies and her glory started to spread more, just like in the past.

Where Cathain felt somehow afraid as she seem to be getting to bright and unreachable for him.

And finally understood, he can’t win against his heart; which can’t let her go.

The Capital City, Rua Kingdom~

“The enemy’s defences are quite strong.”

“She is the daughter of that man afterall, we can’t break through that easily.”

“And that assist mage of hers is also troublesome.”

“His assistance makes her more stronger and break down our formation in an instant.”

“We are in the age of guns, yet we can’t even fend off those soldiers using swords.”

“Because those sword master and assist mages keep helping those knights who can’t use magic.”

“They even block bullets!”

“We need to have an backup plans if the emperor joins the war, we don’t have any information about his powers yet.”

“Those stolen soldier information only revealed about the imperial knights but who knew that the emperor would order the young heirs of the nobles with magic powers to join the war?!”

“We don’t have any information about them, also those mages sent from the magic tower as the Ducal heir of the Heartz didn’t joined the war are also very troublesome.”

Slam!

“WE WILL GO FOR AN ALL OUT ATTACK!”

An higher ranking officer spoke as he slammed the table in frustration; They can’t lose the war.

If they lose, the results will be something they can’t even imagine.

“OUR TROOPS OUTNUMBERS THEM!”

“IF WE ATTACK ALL AT ONCE, EVEN THE IMPERIAL ARMY WON’T BE ABLE TO STAND AGAINST US.”

Everyone fall silent as they thought about this suggestion and they looked at their king, who was silent all this time.

“What do you think about it, Your highness?”

One of them asked with hesitation.

Even if King Medel stays quite most of the time, but they knows how scary he can be.

He slaughtered the whole royal family at the age of 16, and went from being a illegitimate 7th prince to the King.

Because only by being the king, he can get her.

The girl with silver hair and blue eyes; who stole his heart with her sharp look at him.

Although the moment they meet, she was only 14; but the way she negotiated with his father, looked at him with utter disgust made him curious about her.

He followed every news about her, small or big; he knows it all.

King Mendel narrowed his eyes to took a glance at the newspaper infront of him, which front page was once again covered with the Valentino Empire’s crown princess.

The first female knight in their history.

Who dominated the war field like she owned it, giving no chance for his army to charge.

‘Let me see what more you can do, My victory trophy...’

“Where are the enemy’s three forces located?”

King Mendel thought before he asked.

“The western forces are in Surya, and the main army is in Demacia;

In the east, their trops have come down all the way to Fort Ionia”

A knight explained as he presented the war map infront of the king.

Mendel stared at the map for a few moment before he opened his mouth to speak.

“Hmm, That’s perfect; We’ll hit three of their forces at once. Focusing our soldiers on the central and keep both the east and west occupied.”

“This will be called ‘Operation Moonlight'”

‘To trap the moon of the empire...’

“YES, YOUR HIGHNESS!! WE UNDERSTAND!!”

‘I’ve waited more then two months. Purposely weakening the fort’s defences so that the enemy could take it.’

‘But a simple all out attack can’t trap her at all. We have to keep in mind who we’re up against.’

‘Demacia (Eleanora’s base camp, the main target of the attack)... How about this, Ice Princess?!’

‘I’ll be able to see her after this operation is over...

The future moon of the empire, I will take it down for me!’

…

‘They won’t do that this time, right?’

Jennifer walked as she recalled about the sinister backup plan Kingdom Rua had schemed with her father.

Although she doesn’t remember it completely, but she knew it was a inhuman plan which was able to shake the whole imperial army.

Their first plan to bring down the empress while using the special type of poison to stop one’s magic power was successful.

But Kingdom Rua was still defeated so they couldn’t use ‘that’ plan.

‘Why can’t i recall it...’

Jennifer thought as she walked in a daze, bumping into someone as she walked.

.....

“Ah!”

Jennifer fall on the ground with a thudding sound and Eleanora narrowed her eyes coldly to look at her.

“You should exercise more to get a little stronger... Or Is it your habit to bumping into people, Lady Raven?”

Eleanora asked and Jennifer felt cold shiver down her sprain as she recalled the night when her fake pregnancy news was announced by the emperor during the annual foundation day.

Where she purposely bumped into the empress and made the public opinion worsen on her.

All the maids, even Brayden was against the empress because of that as she wanted.

Her first step towards the plan, to remove the empress and the fall of the Dalton duchy.

Jennifer felt so guilty and ashamed on herself that she couldn’t look up at Eleanora, let alone standing up.

‘What did i thought? That she will forgive me after she knows i am her friend, priestess Liana; who deceived her again by hiding real identity?’

“M-My apologise, Your h-highness; I wasn’t l-looking...”

Jennifer couldn’t finish her sentence as Eleanora had already walked away from her without helping her like she did before.

‘Why do i think that, she has changed a little?’

Inside the meeting room~

“The enemy is preparing for an all out attack,”

“According to our informant, they’re calling it Operation Moonlight,”

The emperor spoke and the officials started to discuss among themselves about what to do.

And the emergency council meeting began.

‘The Moonlight Operation...’

Eleanora’s lips curved up into a mocking smile as she heard it.

‘Wanna trap me again? You couldn’t do it in the past life, let alone in this one... Is this all he can do?’

In their past life, This operation bought heavy damage on the imperial army as everyone failed to understand Mendel’s scheme.

Even if Eleanora was suspicious of it, she couldn’t do anything as she didn’t got along with the officials at that time.

And later her assumption came true.

It wasn’t Moonlight operation at all.

The enemy didn’t attacked all out like how light spreads but rather, they just focused on the moon.

All of them attacked on the base camp, which was lead by Eleanora, the moon of the empire.

Their target was she from the very beginning.

Most of the knights died to protect her as she didn’t surrendered.

She insisted on fighting, which lead to the dead of thousand soldiers.

She wouldn’t cared if she died, but it was a fatal blow to her as she survived because of the knights sacrifice.

The tactic where Axion Spade and many close knights died to protect her.

“400 thousand soldiers from the Rua are marching in three group towards our base camps from three sides.”

“It looks like they want to hit our base camp harder as they have less soldiers in western and eastern side.”

“They plan to keep our central troops lead by the emperor occupied where they hit the other bases lead by the crown princess and the duke Richardo.”

The war tactician spoke as he explained the situation to everyone.

Eleanora quitely listened to them, waiting for the right moment to speak.

“It’s a good thing that we noticed it early. This won’t be a problem as long as we keep the back ups ready for the east and west camp.”

“Wouldn’t it be easy to win as long as the 200 thousand soldiers who will attack the main base camp are defeated?”

“The king must be feeling afraid. Otherwise why would he make such a hasty plan?”

The officials discussed as they laughed at Mendel for planning such an obvious operation.

But right then, a cold voice rang.

“Are you people dumb or he is too cunning?”